


As If You Don't Remember (As If You Can Forget)

by tardiscrash



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Reunion, Twelveclara, during s10, this is my first dw fic don't @ me, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 06:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardiscrash/pseuds/tardiscrash
Summary: She hadn’t meant to end up there. Truly, she hadn’t. In fact, this was exactly what she had been trying to avoid ever since she left him, alone, in the diner so long ago.But maybe she had wanted this.Maybe she knew that he’d be right here, waiting in his little blue box. After all, she did know him more than anyone else in the universe did - thousands of lifetimes saving the same person tended to do that to a person.





	As If You Don't Remember (As If You Can Forget)

**Author's Note:**

> For Fatma,

He is cleaning the blackboard when she lets herself in. 

He never cleans the blackboard enough; it’s one of Nardole’s favourite things to complain about at the minute. He considered letting it get as dusty and cluttered as possible, simply to spite his odd companion, but there’s only so much grumbling from Nardole a timelord can handle, so he reluctantly decided to clean the board so his friend would shut up. 

The dust is way too thick to clean by hand and even a half-hearted attempt with his sonic sunglasses hardly makes a dent in the chalked-out equations. He’s honestly considering taking a trip back to a Victorian schoolhouse so he can borrow a new board altogether when a key rattles in the lock of the TARDIS door.

He glances over at the console to check his location: The Middle of Nowhere, exactly where he parked her. A brief second of worry shadows his eyes as he considers the possibility of his accidentally dragging Bill through the time vortex as he had done, lifetimes ago, with Jack.  He steels himself, fixes an apologetic look onto his face, and waits for the door to swing open.

Except, it’s not Bill who walks into the TARDIS. It isn’t even Nardole.

It’s a woman.

 

She hadn’t meant to end up there. Truly, she hadn’t. In fact, this was exactly what she had been trying to avoid ever since she left him, alone, in the diner so long ago. 

But maybe she had wanted this.

Maybe she knew that he’d be right here, waiting in his little blue box. After all, she did know him more than anyone else in the universe did - thousands of lifetimes saving the same person tended to do that to a person.

Part of her, somewhere, was telling her not to go in, not to risk it. But the key she hadn’t had the heart to leave behind was burning a hole in her pocket. The knowledge that he was in there was enough to pull her towards the door.

 

She looks at him intensely, a bonfire burning in the pit of her eyes, as she studies him. The Doctor sees the sadness of a thousand galaxies pooled at the bottom of her eyes as they stare at each other, frozen. The whole ordeal frightens him.

And it takes a lot to frighten the Doctor. 

She approaches the console cautiously, as if not to frighten him and, when he doesn’t move, she programs a flight path with an effortlessness that could rival his own, and sets the TARDIS into motion.

 

And they stand there, silent, watching each other. She can feel a weight settling into her stomach, a weight she’s been running from for a long, long time. She has no clue what he’s thinking, no clue if he has even the slightest inkling of who she is. 

That last thought makes her sick to her stomach and, to no one’s surprise, she feels her eyes prick with bitter tears. 

_ This is her fault. _

The TARDIS grinds to a halt, and it’s now or never, so she turns around.

“Doctor,” she says, too quietly.

“Do I know you?” he asks, and she has to try all she can to stop her face from falling.

Instead, she stretches her mouth into a curve that feels entirely foreign on her face.

“Nah,” she says “Just one of those faces.”

“How do you know how to fly my ship?” He asks, his voice cutting through the stunned silence that they’d adopted and causing the woman to take a step backwards.

“The TARDIS?” she says, with a certain nonchalance that used to be able to drive him insane, “It’s a talent of mine.”   
The Doctor blinks. Once. Twice. Flustered. Stumbling.

She can’t know what the TARDIS is. She can’t.

“How do you know what this is?” He blinks again.

“What?” she examines her reflection in the console screen, quickly losing herself to old habits. “A type forty TARDIS with a faulty chameleon circuit? I’m not stupid, old man. And stop blinking so much, it makes you look all… weird.”

He blinks again anyway, dazed.

He feels like he’s just regenerated; he’s never been so confused in all of his lives. The woman is running rings around his head and he can’t think. He doesn’t have a clue who she is, yet she speaks to him so familiarly, like she has known him for her whole life.

The woman glances at the Doctor’s wavering reflection in the console screen and she smiles.

It’s… it’s something distinct. It’s something enchanting and cathartic and the Doctor feels like he’s been waiting for that smile forever. 

It’s slow and knowing and almost sly; she knows something he doesn’t, evidently. But now, instead of being an intruder, she is suddenly the most wonderful, most intimate person in the universe. The Doctor doesn’t know how he managed to come to that conclusion; he has known the woman for all of two minutes, but she seems to slot right into the TARDIS as if she had been sat in the corner of the console room since the Doctor stole his ship from Gallifrey, all those years ago.

“Doctor,” she repeats, her smile widening, almost impossibly, “You can stop now.”

The Doctor looks at her, confusion seeping back in, permeating the memory of her smile and plunging his world back into darkness.

“What?” he asks, too sharp, too loud, too hostile.

“No…” she mutters, turning to see him properly, turning to frown, turning to match his ook of befuddlement. “No… No… You can’t…”   
“I can’t what?” The Doctor asks, and it comes out more of a bark than a question, which he immediately regrets.

The woman’s face crumples instantly, and the Doctor, who has seen the fall of civilisations. The Doctor, who has lost everyone he has ever loved. The Doctor, who lives in darkness. 

The Doctor doesn’t believe he has ever seen such a heartbreaking sight.

Her forehead creases into tiny lines and her eyes fog over. The Doctor - foolishly, selfishly - mourns the loss of her smile. She looks on the verge of tears. She looks as if her world has just burned to the ground in front of her. 

“I just wanted to see you,” her voice wobbles dangerously, “I just wanted to see you.”

She’s walking towards the door before the Doctor can react, her feet moving too fast for her to keep up with, too fast for the Doctor to keep up with. He can feel his hearts shattering and his eyes stinging and he hasn’t a clue why. 

_ He has seen this before. He has seen this before. She is walking away, she is leaving. _

His stomach writhes, every bone in his body aches and he can hear his blood pumping around his body, willing him to do something.

That’s when he opens his mouth and utters a word that had been lost to him for a long, long time.

“Clara.”


End file.
